Rivals Agree On 802.11s Wireless Mesh Proposal

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Following a quiet agreement on a joint IEEE mesh networking standard last month, companies like Motorola are announcing plans to move the technology into their own products.

The Intel-and Firetide-led SEE Mesh, which had put forward a proposal to compete with Nortel’s Wi-Mesh Alliance, resolved their differences and moved forward with a joint proposal that should be voted in as the draft standard for 802.11s, the IEEE mesh networking standard.

A final standard might not be due until early 2008, although industry executives said that estimate might be conservative, and “pre-standard” products might also be released in the interim. The new mesh standard is expected not only to be used by city-wide Wi-Fi systems such as those being deployed in San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and other small towns, but also in the home, in routers, gateways and even consumer-electronic equipment.

Companies have begun positioning themselves for the upgrade. Motorola said Wednesday that it plans to upgrade its MeshConnex metropolitan-area mesh networking system with 802.11s-compliant software once the draft standard is complete.

Basic Wi-Fi is predicated upon the IEEE 802.11 standard, which includes flavors like 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and soon the faster 802.11n specification. Various add-ons to the spec bring in other features, such as 802.11i, which adds a layer of security. Devices will have to support 802.11s to enable the mesh features.

However, the 802.11s standard will enter a mesh market that has already developed without it. That will minimize its impact as an enabling technology, but will nevertheless serve as the common fabric that will help enable roaming from one network to the other, executives said. The 802.11s technology will also be forced to compete with 3G cellular devices, which allow data downloads on the go.

“To me, the huge advantage is interoperability between mesh vendors, which nobody has today,” said Rick Rotondo, director of marketing in Motorola’s mesh networking group.

Given that infrastructure providers such as Motorola and service providers such as Metro-fi have already begun deploying their own proprietary mesh networks means that the upgrades will have less of an impact than a more wholesale upgrade like 802.11n, according to Sam Lucero, an a analyst with ABI Research. Lucero predicted that that a final specification would be reached in 2008.

“Some vendors do talk about 802.11s standards as a source of competition, allowing a customer to source from multiple vendors,” Lucero said. “It’s going to be less of an issue on the metro scale, and more of an issue on campus-wide deployments,” such as a university or corporate headquarters, he said.

But Lucero said he envisioned a scenario where one mobile mesh user roamed to the edge of the network. Today, he might be unable to migrate to a neighboring town’s network. The 802.11s specification would eliminate that technical hurdle, although the two billing systems would have to hand the user off to the other system.

According to Rotondo, the joint consensus happened more quickly than expected. Debates such as the future of the ultrawideband standard can drag on for years. In the case of UWB, the IEEE group was unable to resolve their differences.

“This merger was successful and a single joint proposal was presented and confirmed unanimously at the March meeting as the starting point for the 802.11s standard, although much work remains,” according to a note posted at the IEEE’s 802.11s web site. The groups will meet informally this month and in May to discuss security enhancements and work out possible technical obstacles.

Officially, the 802.11s group has set a timeline to publish an initial draft specification in July 2007, and publish the final spec by July 2008.

“Right now the task group has about three months of revisions, then we probably have another year left in the letter ballot stage,” said Vann Hasty, the director of technology standards lead for the mesh product group at Motorola, who offered his own personal views of the timeline process. “Then there’s three to four months of sponsor ballots. I can’t see it any earlier than the middle of ”08 for final ratification.”

In years past, products required the final stamp of approval upon the specification before they could be marketed. While a final spec is required for absolute certification, more vendors have begun to market “pre-spec” products that are designed to be used only with products from the same vendor, before the final spec allows upgrades to make the various equipment interoperable. In mesh networking’s case, the evolution was reversed: products were developed and sold before the IEEE process was begun, and pre-spec products are already a reality, Hasty said.

“There’s nothing we can do about them,” Hasty said. “Pre-spec products just are.”

“It’s hard to say – it depends on the progress,” Rotondo said, when asked when a draft standard could be introduced, and upgrades begun. “I’d say about a year. The way it’s gone, I’d say there’s been far more consensus than contention.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the 802.11i standard adds security features to the basic 802.11 specification, not 802.11e as the story originally stated.

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